


arms unfolding

by rosebarsoap



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2020-03-02 09:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18808669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosebarsoap/pseuds/rosebarsoap
Summary: old partner in crime, i am going to try to fall in love with you again.(spoilers for asra's route)





	1. sense

The first thing I feel is light.  


It’s blinding, incandescent white, shaking the darkness from my pupils with a sudden jolt. I want to shield my vision from it, but my arm resolutely stays stuck at my side. It’s like lead when I try to pick it up. Something glides over my upward-facing palm, smooth and slick, but disappears as soon as I register it.  


“Faust? What did— Are they—?”  


The first thing I hear is a voice, someone scrambling to their feet, a presence at my side. It’s familiar… but I can’t place it. I muster all the energy I have in me to try and sit up, eyes still winced shut against the light, but a pair of hands gently push me back down onto the bed. The voice says my name in a reverent whisper.  


Is that me? That sounds like it should be me. It feels right. The voice that calls my name gets their breath caught in their throat when I manage to open my eyes, blinking slowly.  


The first thing I see is a blurry face, staring down at me. The person smiles, relief lighting up their features; it makes my heart swell, but I’m not sure what for.  


“You’re okay. You’re… You’re here.”  


The person presses their hand to my forehead, then put two fingers to the side of my throat, checking my pulse. Apparently satisfied, they breathe out a soft laugh.  


“It worked.”  


The person comes into focus fully as they help me sit up. A tuft of white, fluffy hair falls into his face, but he doesn’t try to move it, distracted as he looks over me, studying my every move. When his eyes meet mine, I’m hit with a sudden wave of elation, so strong that I almost feel it brush against my face with the force of it.  


“Oh. I forgot… I forgot how bright your eyes are.”  


He blinks back tears. I try to reach out, to help, but my arm falls limp onto the cushions next to me. He threads his fingers through mine, and another burst of emotion shoots up my arm into my chest, intense relief and… Something. He notices I haven’t spoken; the person swallows thickly, and his hand slips away.  


“Can you… Are you alright?”  


The first thing I say is a garbled croak. My mouth snaps shut out of instinctual shock, and I elect to nod my head instead. Whatever voice I had before isn’t quite working yet.  


“It’s okay, you’re okay. It might take time for you to… to talk.”  


He stands up fully, and it’s then that I notice a long, legless animal wound around his shoulders, fixing red eyes on me. I know what it's called, but the word doesn't come for a few seconds— _snake._ It's a snake. The snake doesn’t look or feel threatening, but rather flicks its tongue out at me, looking between me and him in concern.  


“I know, Faust. Let’s try… Can you stand?”  


I manage to sit up, but as soon as I try to get off the bed my head swims with dizziness. I wobble, one foot nearly touching the floor as I fall back onto the pile of pillows, suddenly very, very tired. I can’t help but wonder what’s going on; I look to the person, my brow furrowed, and my confusion makes him falter, hands hovering over my shoulders and head.  


“What? Wait, what’s— Oh. Oh… I’m sorry… it’s still new.”  


His hand presses to my forehead, and something like water flows over my body, reaching down to the very tips of my fingers. He gently lays me back down on the bed as I start to lose consciousness again, his touch on my cheek delicate, like I might crumble apart if he presses harder.  


“They still need time. We can try again tomorrow.”  


— — — — —  


The first thing I smell is something inviting and herbal, wafting towards me from a small distance away. I open my eyes and stretch, and the crack of my joints makes the person in the other room turn around in surprise.  


“You’re awake.” He smiles at me, and I try to return it, though I’m not sure if I just made a weird grimace instead. He chuckles, pouring liquid from a pot into a small cup. “Here, it’s just about done.”  


He walks over and pulls a chair up, sitting in front of me with the cup in both hands. I gingerly take it from him, my fingers brushing against his, and when I look between the cup and the person sitting across, he watches me with a curious gaze.  


“Hm? Oh! Here…”He hops up, pours himself another cup, and sits back down, looking to me and nodding down at the matching cup in my lap. When he lifts it up, I mirror the motion, and we take sips of the liquid simultaneously.  


The first thing I taste is the contents of the cup; it’s warm, smooth and comforting as I swallow, the taste floral and sweet. I subconsciously close my eyes to savor it, realizing how dry my throat was, and hear the person across from me laugh.  


“You always liked this kind of tea,” he murmurs, smiling when I open my eyes again. I try to remember drinking it before, and the strain must show on my face, as he urgently takes my hand.  


“Try— try not to remember. Not yet.” He sighs, running a hand through his messy hair. “I’ll explain soon. You’re still getting used to— well…”  


I arch a brow at him, and he shakes his head before taking another mouthful of tea. “It’s a long story. You’ll know soon, I promise.”  
He sits with me for a while longer, watching as I finish the tea with an odd expression on his face, as if me slowly drinking from his cup is the most marvelous thing he’s ever seen. Before he gets up, I grab hold of his sleeve, tugging at it insistently.  


“Yes? Do you need anything else?”  


I try to vocalize my question, but it comes out as a stuttered breath, and I shut my mouth quickly, embarrassed. Instead, I point at him, tilting my head in question, and hope he understands my ridiculous charades. Thankfully for both of us, the snake pops out of his sash and stares at him; he nods, realization dawning over him.  


“Are you… Are you asking what my name is?”  


I nod, giving a grateful smile to the snake, who wiggles at me in return. He takes the cup from my lap, kneeling down until he’s eye-to-eye with me, his face suddenly flushing pink. There’s something behind his eyes that I can’t place… something this stranger knows about me, as if he’s known me far longer than two days.  


The first thing I remember is him.  


“My name is Asra. …It’s a pleasure to meet you.”


	2. bread

I go between long lapses of rest and waking over the next few days. Something about getting accustomed to “the change”, which I’m not allowed to know about. The person— Asra— decided that after three days of me taking up the bed, it was time for me to start standing and walking again. Another thing to get used to.  


He refuses to tell me anything, like how I got here, what happened, how I know him. I want to ask why there’s a deep ache in my chest that knows no meaning, but my voice still comes out in wordless noise. Another time, perhaps.  


Asra takes both my hands in his, and I swing my feet over the side of the bed to touch the floor. It’s cold, but I plant my feet steady, looking up to Asra for further guidance.  


“Alright, it shouldn’t be too hard. You can do it,” he encourages, squeezing my hands tight.  


He lends me his strength as I get up, wobbling a little with the change in altitude, but I stay standing. I stare down at my feet, wiggling my toes experimentally against the wood underneath. Frustration flits through me for a fleeting moment; I _know_ how to walk, why do I have to do it again? What made my body forget?  


“I know it’s weird, but... it’s as easy as you think it is.” Asra must sense my annoyance, as he ducks down a bit to catch my eye. I lift my head to look at him proper before nodding, determined. Walking. Easy-peasy.  


He steps backward, holding onto my hands tight, and I gingerly lift my foot up, placing it in front of my other one. Repeating the motion makes me feel like a baby, figuring out basic human functions, but Asra’s encouragement keeps me from getting too down on myself.  


“You’re a natural.”  


I look at him dubiously, and he laughs with a sheepish shrug. “Well, it is only walking. But you figured it out quickly, is what I mean.”  


We take more steps around the room, dodging obstacles made from the dinner table and a pile of furs in the center of the floor, before he lets go of my hands, leaving me swaying in place on unsteady feet. “You can do it,” Asra says, walking backwards to make a small distance between us. “Just walk towards me. It’s shorter than you think.”  


Rather than rushing headfirst (and then falling headfirst), I take it slowly, shuffling my feet a bit before I lift up one, place it in front of the other, and repeat. I should be used to this by now; I know I’ve walked before, but my legs apparently forgot how. Gaining confidence with each step, I cross the room and make it to Asra in one piece before promptly falling into his arms, a rush of lightheadedness taking my feet out from under me.  


He catches me like he’s done it a thousand times before, a steadying hand on my hip as he helps me stand up again. “It’s alright, you’re okay. You did it.”  


Asra pauses, looking into my eyes for a long moment as I stand in front of him, his hands on my waist and the distance between us small.  


“Ah—”  


He reaches up and finds an errant lock of hair in front of my eyes, tucking it behind my ear. His touch lingers, and I feel the warmth of his palm hovering over my cheek.  


“Your hair always gets in your eyes when you’re focused.” Asra smiles, and the ache in my chest lightens. “I mean, from what I saw as you, er, walked.”  


He pulls away, and I feel cold without his presence so close to me. I turn around too quickly, nearly getting my feet tangled in the process, but steady myself on the bookshelf near my arm. As I grab onto the shelf, a book falls with a dull thud; Asra turns to see what made the noise, and I make the most innocent expression I can manage with my face aflame. He laughs, shaking his head and muttering something under his breath as he goes to wash the teacups, but I only get a small portion of it.  


“... haven’t changed a bit.”  


— — — — —  


Asra decides it’s time for me to go outside. I can walk up and down stairs now, so I can go into the market with him.  


“If anything happens, or your head starts hurting, let me know, okay? We can come straight home if you need to,” he reassures me, winding his scarf around my shoulders. The second he turns away from me to open the door, I cover my nose and mouth with it and breathe deeply. It smells like him. Comforting.  


It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sun’s beams as Asra swings the door shut behind us, and I squint to make out our surroundings. A long, cobblestoned alleyway leads towards the hustle and bustle of a loud-sounding town, but a sign with a snake wrapped around a mortar and pestle swinging in front of the door blocks some of my vision.  


“It can get pretty crowded, but we can stick together. I won’t let you get swindled for goldberries or anything.” Asra chuckles, placing his palm flat on the door and closing his eyes. A white, glowing symbol burns into the wood and promptly disappears; I curiously watch it fade away.  


“It’s a protection charm. Nobody will break in while this is here.” He knocks on the door, and it stays sturdy and shut. I nod, looking back to the distant town, and swallow thickly.  


“You’ll be alright. I promise.”  


Asra takes my hand, threading his fingers through mine, and we head up the path towards the town. He chatters at me about the residents and what to look for when buying things, to which I nod or hum at. It’s frustrating not being able to properly articulate my replies; I have so much I want to ask. But until then, I listen intently, watching Asra’s lips curve around each word, how his tongue rolls around the word “loaf”.  


“The baker makes so many of those pumpkin bread loaves, you can smell it from the shop. It’s hard to miss.” Asra turns to glance at me as we walk, but stops in his tracks— it’s then that I realize I stared at his mouth the entire time he spoke.  


“Is there something on my face?”  


No, but I pretend to save my pride. I nod, reach up, and gingerly smear an imaginary streak of dirt off Asra’s jaw, scrutinizing my thumb for a moment, and wipe it on the hem of my shirt. He watches my every move, and if I wasn’t touching him at that moment, I wouldn’t feel the fine tremor that goes through him when I pull away.  


“Erm… Thank you. Shall we?”  


He offers me his arm, and I curl my hand into the crook of his elbow, smiling up at him. He returns it before quickly looking away— but I catch the flush of red color his face. I want to ask why he gets so warm when he’s around me, but my mouth refuses to make the words. If I try, it’d just be a mumble and something unintelligible, and I’d rather keep my mouth shut for now.  


We make it into the town as the sun climbs into the center of the sky. It’s bustling with people through the main alley, vendors shouting out wares and trying to get our attention. Asra squeezes my hand tight and we beeline to a particular stall next to an indigo tent, and as soon as we step into the stall’s vicinity I’m hit with a bombardment of different spicy scents. Asra catches me sniffing the air.  


“Told you you’d smell it from a mile away.”  


“Asra! Thought you’d disappeared on me for a second there— _Again_.”  


He turns to the voice, sheepish expression at the ready when he meets the eye of a friendly-faced man, caked in flour from the elbows down to under his fingernails. The baker beams at him, then his gaze slides over to me with a cocked brow.  


“You’ve brought a friend this time, hm? And who might you be?”  


Panic threatens to settle on my features— I can’t answer his question. I flail for a second in a blind panic, but before the pause gets too awkward, Asra jumps in.  


“This is my-- my friend. I’m afraid they can’t talk at the moment: sore throat.” He lies effortlessly, with the furrowed brow of concern to boot. The baker nods understandingly, but the second he turns his back to us, Asra winks at me with a sly grin playing on his lips.  


“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you! For the lovely newcomer and their magician.” The baker reverently places two steaming loaves of bread on the table in front of us, wrapped in white paper. “Careful, they’re hot.”  


Asra thanks the baker and gives him a handful of coin before picking up the bread, partially unwrapping one and giving it to me. It’s warm against my palm, the paper crinkling under my fingertips. We leave the stall almost as soon as we get there, continuing our walk against the crowd. There’s more people now as the afternoon begins; I feel shoulders bump into mine and feet shuffling by, everyone’s chatter and the vendors’ shouting all falling together in a cacophony of loud. Asra’s hand brushes past mine and I grab it for some form of anchor. He looks to me for a moment, white brows knitted together before he pulls me into a quiet alleyway, dark and hidden from the commotion of the main street. He glances out to where we came, then turns to me with a more gentle expression.  


“We can stop here for a second, if you’d like. I know the crowds can get… overwhelming.”  


He could tell? I stare up at him and he laughs at my wide-eyed surprise.  


“You held my hand tighter than… than before. I could sense something was wrong,” he explains, leaning against the wall across from me with a sigh. “At least we can eat here and not be disturbed.”  


I look down at the loaf of bread in my hand, still warm and inviting. It smells divine; I lift it to my face and take a deep breath in of it before making a tentative bite. It’s spiced and almost melts on my tongue; I hum approvingly, smiling with my mouth full.  


“Heh, I knew you’d like it.”Asra chews on a mouthful of his loaf and signs in content, tilting his head back against the wall and staring up at the sliver of sky between the two buildings we’re wedged between. I continue eating, watching him as he thinks.  


“I… I know it’s somewhat bizarre, getting used to all this. New faces, new places. But you’re doing pretty well so far. Maybe…”  


He cuts himself off with another bite of bread, and I do the same.  


“Another time. For now, we still need a few things from the stalls outside. Murkwood, bergamot, more blackberries… Faust requested more mice, but she can catch those herself. Even if she pretends she can’t.”  


Asra grins, the joking brightness in his eyes makes something bubble up in my chest… and I laugh. My voice sounds foreign and raspy from lack of use, but after being stuck in the shop for so long, sitting in this alleyway and talking about his lazy snake causes it to burst out of me. It’s only when I stop that I notice Asra’s slack-jawed, gaze soft on my features, before he quickly swaps his countenance to a more neutral (if not more pink-cheeked) look.  


“I forgot what you sounded like when you laugh. What you look like.”  


The words are almost murmured, but they’re the only thing I hear in the alleyway with a foot of space between us. He falters before he reaches forward and brushes a crumb from the corner of my mouth, and he looks out to the marketplace again. A lot of the people left; there’s only a few vendors shouting now. The sudden quiet makes the last of the tension in my shoulders dissipate.  


“Looks like the crowd calmed down. Let’s go get those ingredients, hm?”  


Asra leads the way through the different stalls, but even with no people to weave between, his hand holds tight to mine.


	3. accident

I slowly learn how to look after myself again. Asra says I’m getting pretty good at letting the tea steep for the perfect amount of time, and I can sweep the floor fairly well after some practice. I raise a questioning brow at him, nodding at the broom in my hand, and his cheeks tint pink.  


“It’s not just an excuse so _I_ don’t have to sweep. Maybe.”  


He winks at me and I laugh, going back to piling up another herd of dust bunnies in the corner of the floor. I see it out the corner of my eye, sense it on the edge of my awareness; his sad smile, the deep pull at the base of my core that makes me wonder _why_. He stumbles over his words sometimes, as if he wants to say thousands of things but can only get one out of his mouth. Asra is a fluffy-haired wealth of secrets, ones he wants to share, but for some reason _can’t_.  


Asra soon decides the stall he operates from is too small, and after a few more weeks of his fortune-telling for coin, we relocate. It’s only further down the marketplace, but it’s in a building instead of a tent in town. This place has an upstairs living area, not unlike our last location, but this… it feels familiar. Much more homey. Asra and I leave the old behind for this new, and we settle into our new home quickly. He started leaving me alone here recently; after I figured out how to make food, he concluded that I’m alright to stay at the shop while he’s gone. Only for short bouts, at least— no more than a day, right now.  


“Soon I’ll have to leave for longer, but I’m not worried about you.” Asra slings his bag onto his shoulder and smiles warmly at me. He steps forward and reaches, as if to touch my face, but his hand swings back down to his side. “You’ve already gotten the knack of making breakfast. Soon you’ll be unstoppable.”  


I flex both arms jokingly and he laughs, shaking his head at me. Faust slithers from within his scarf onto my shoulders, rubbing the top of her head on my face. Asra looks surprised, but it gives way to a fond smirk as he folds his arms over his chest.  


“Faust, you want to stay here?”  


She lifts her ruby-red eyes to his, and they watch each other for a long moment; he nods as he turns on his heel to the door.  


“Keep them company for me. And don’t squeeze them too hard.”  


Asra turns to wave at me one more time before he clicks the door shut. Faust looks at me, and I look at her. She flicks her tongue at me. We’re both very good at conversations.  


I sigh and run a hand through my hair, and Faust decides to slither around my forearm and sit atop my head like a very smug crown. I don’t need to ask her to know that she’s happy up there. A wave of content washes over me... Was it sent by her, somehow?  


Faust hisses at me softly. I’ll take that as a yes.  


It’s then that I feel another blast of emotion from her— but it’s another pull, similar to the one I feel when Asra thinks I’m not looking. It takes me upstairs. Faust drops down to my shoulders and directs her head in the way she wants me to go, like a long, blue compass. She leads me to the bed, slides down my arm onto it, and ducks her head underneath. I crouch, lifting blankets and furs out of the way to find what Faust’s looking at.  


I pull out something made of wood, that looks like half of a face. It’s intricately carved, painted with delicate brush strokes of brilliant, bright colors. Faust nudges it, wiggling this way and that. Asra hasn’t told me what these are called again, but… it feels so familiar. Like I’ve seen it… no, like I’ve _worn_ it before. Am I meant to wear this? Faust nudges it again, making me flip it over. Two thin, black ribbons spill out, attached to the two edges.  


A mask. That’s what it’s called. How could I forget? I wore this at… at the…  


My chest feels tight. The ache is back, but… worse. Far, far worse. I clutch at my shirt and a startled yelp escapes my mouth before Faust, and everything around her, fades away.  


— — — — —  


I’m at a party. A _huge_ party.  


There’s a giant crowd of people in this room, and everyone’s in elaborate costumes, every way I look. I don’t recognize anyone, though familiar names sit on the tip of my tongue. I look down at myself— I’m in such finery it takes me a second to realize it’s _me_ that I’m staring down at. Lifting an arm to examine my sleeve’s intricate embroidery, I feel a weight on my face, tugging it down; I feel around my cheekbones for a mask. Somehow, I know it’s there. It’s meant to be there. Of course, because the one who made it for me is—  


“Asra!”  


A voice calls out, but I feel it in my throat, recognizing immediately as I hear it. It’s _mine_.  


My feet move on their own, striding towards someone wearing a beautiful costume, and as he turns around, he says my name. It sounds like honey in his mouth, the way he calls for me with such sweetness in his tone. Asra’s smile is as warm as ever, but when he looks at me, he’s radiantly, blissfully happy.  


I wonder why.  


I ask him if he tried the “bursting juice balls” in the cocktail room, and we fall into an easy conversation. It’s peculiar, to hear my voice… I forgot what it sounded like. Asra takes my hand and pulls me out of the room, out of the giant building the party takes place in, and we walk to a clearing. I already know the way, my feet leading me instinctually to a large willow tree next to a marble fountain. He squeezes my hand and spins me around, and my laugh is so effortless that it takes me by surprise to hear it. I know it’s my laugh, but I feel so far from… whatever this is. A memory, or a dream? Both and neither?  


Asra leads me backwards to the tree, my spine pressed against the bark, and he leans close to my side to talk amidst the party-goers’ loud chatting. I catch half of what he says, and when I turn to ask him to repeat himself, I realize it’s not the gossiping guests he stares at. I lock eyes with him staring at me, instead. He’s but a breath away… and his gaze is stubborn on my lips.  


But something clasps onto my shoulders and shakes. Asra disappears, his last words hazy on the edge of my memory.  


“How could I forget?”  


— — — — —  


I blink blearily in the sudden light, and find I’m lying on the floor next to the bed. There’s a small puddle of blood in my eye-line, sticky in my hair and dried on my temple. If a snake could look worried, Faust would be fretful as she looks down at me, curled around my wrist. She’s not alone.  


“What happened?! Are you alright? Oh, please be alright…”  


Asra carefully turns me onto my back, and he gasps when he sees the blood on my face. The sudden change in position makes my head throb, and I wince in pain. Faust travels from my arm to his shoulders, and he glances sidelong at her. His expression reads almost… Hurt.  


“I appreciate the thought, Faust. But we have to be careful.”  


He presses his palm to my forehead, fingertips sliding over the small cut over my eyebrow. I feel the skin start to stitch back together, and within seconds, it’s gone. I carefully sit up, feeling around my forehead for any leftover memory of the gash, but it feels good as new.  


Speaking of memory… I don’t remember what happened. Faust brought me upstairs, to the bed. She wanted to show me something…  


“You must’ve fainted. You need to remember to actually eat, now that you know how to cook a few things.”  


He jokes, but as Asra pulls me to my feet, his eyes lack the mirth his lying smile tells. Brushing dust from my shoulder, he stuffs something into his bag with his free hand, quick enough that I don’t catch what it is.  


“I’m glad I came home when I did. I managed to find what I needed quickly enough, so I won’t have to leave for a while.”  


He drops his bag on the floor, next to a three-legged stool, and goes to the kitchenette to start making tea. I’m tempted to see what he put in his bag, what he obviously didn’t want me to see. But before I can open the flap, Asra calls to me, asking for help starting the fire.  


I tuck the trailing black ribbon into his bag, leaving his secrets to himself.


	4. speak

To fill the noisy silence, Asra chatters. He talks to me about everything and nothing all at once, and while I can’t reply, I find ways to contribute with nods and hums. I’m trying, at least. I think he knows that, as whenever I laugh in the right places he brightens up with a smile that makes me laugh more, light and almost giddy. Every time, the sadness in his eyes lessens just a bit.  


He starts teaching me more about the people we pass in the market. There’s the baker we met, with his pumpkin bread and his mice problem, and Asra rubs his knuckles clean of scars. The fishmonger who lurks by the docks, the spice seller who seems to always have a cold, the fruit “fanatic”, as Asra calls them, nursing a basket of oranges with gentle strokes to their bright skins. There’s the fortune teller, blabbing to people in their tent about love on the horizon and fortune in great quantities when we pass them. Asra says they taught him everything he knew, but when I look to him incredulously he starts sputtering with giggles.  


He doesn’t tell me why some stare at me so strangely. We passed someone selling halva who Asra didn’t say anything about— when I met their eyes, they almost dropped the plate of samples. The shoe-seller on Red Street seemed to _recognize_ me, but Asra pulled us away before they shouted my name. Asra sensed my curiosity, told me the vendor just wanted to sell me new shoes. Which would’ve still been _nice_ , but he must've pretended to know me so I’d come to the booth. Strange.  


I’m starting to learn my way around Vesuvia now, with Asra’s help. There’s so many different districts and places to go, and we’ve only really seen a few of them, judging by the darker alleyways he pulls me past. I heard shouting in a small, sunken building, a bird squawking above the din, but Asra said it was one of the more “unsavory” parts of town and we left it behind. Instead, he points out the Palace when we walk through the forest, his arm wrapped tight within both of mine as I struggle to find footing on land he knows backwards. He helps me climb up a huge boulder and we stand atop it, staring at the elegant spires of the Palace, small, purple flags topping each one that wave in the wind.  


“The Countess lives there,” Asra explains, turning to me with warmth in his smile. “She’s lovely. Hopefully you’ll get to meet her someday, I’m sure she’d really like you.”  


His eyes glaze over in reminiscence, and before I can lean forward in question, he shakes his head.  


“Maybe not right now, but soon. I promise.”  


The walk home rides heavy on our shoulders, silence our third wheel, and once we reach the front door of the shop, Asra speaks again.  


“What would you like for dinner? We have a few choices, but some might need a few extra things picking up if we make them. I know we have enough spices for a curry, I’m not sure how many potatoes there are...”  


His one-sided conversation trails off in my earshot. It’s not that I’m not happy to _listen_ , it’s that I’m not happy that I can’t _reciprocate_. Why did my mouth forget how to speak? When I try to form words, they come out in croaks, like I’m a very tall frog in human clothes. I know words. Asra says a mighty amount of them. Asra. Asra.  


“Ah... Ash... As...”  


Asra’s next sentence cuts short. He turns to me, all shocked wide eyes and mouth agape. He whispers my name.  


“As... ruh. Asra.”  


I feel like a child. The word comes clunky and somewhat coherent, but I manage it after mouthing it a few times.  


“Asra.”  


The emotions war on his features. He takes a tentative step closer, apparent amazement in his eyes.  


“Asra.”  


I point at him, smiling. He comes closer still, his hand reaching up as if to take mine, but he stops short, hesitant. My brow pulls down in concern and I drop my hand, but his outstretched one catches it on the way down.  


He breathes my name into the space between us, smaller shrinking when he steps towards me. His hand feels warm over mine, but each shake reverberates up my arm. When I meet his eye he turns his attention down. Down to my mouth.  


“Asra?”  


Each time I say it, his grip on my hand tightens. My tongue licks the seam of my lips out of nervousness, but he follows the movement intently, his hair tickling my forehead when he tilts to rest his against mine. He says my name again, quiet and reverent, like a prayer.  


“Asra.”  


This is the closest we’ve ever been. Asra holds my hand tight, his eyes bearing into mine between glances down to my lips as I try to form more words. It’s new and exciting and I know he feels how fast my heart thumps against my chest; I can feel his beat in tandem, even though our torsos don’t touch. It’s like an echo of mine, both rapid-fire fast in our ribcages.  


“Can you… Do you know other words?”  


Good question. I have two choices for an answer.  


“Yes.”  


Asra’s eyes alight with a hopeful confidence in me that leaves me anything but tongue-tied.  


“Other… words. Yes.”  


My sentences turn choppy, but they’ll smooth out in time, like a spear to a whetstone’s edge. He nods, looks down at the space between us and promptly steps backward, lengthening it. It makes him feel much farther from me than he actually is.  


“Let’s find more words for you to learn.”  


— — — — —  


Time passes as Asra teaches me more and more things. I forgot numbers, somehow, but he helped me learn— I felt like a child, re-learning how to count, but he was graciously patient with me. The day I said my first word, his name, was a while ago, now.  


Yet every time I say it, Asra looks at me in awe like it’s the first time all over again.  


I figure out more and more sentences, sayings that sit in my mouth as I learn them, and soon I know far more than just his name. Asra makes dinner and I watch, standing by the countertop by his side, and he helps me turn my tongue around different kitchen words— kettle, stove, dinner, and the particularly long _salamander,_ who pops out from under the pile of wood to spit fire under the pot. Asra holds him out to me and he skitters into my upturned palm; it tickles my skin and he blinks his beady eyes at me.  


“Go on, say hello.”  


“… Hello.”  


The salamander gingerly sniffs my wrist before climbing up my arm, which only tickles _more_ , making me laugh when he settles down on my shoulder for a nap. Asra smiles, hair falling in his face.  


“He likes you,” he says as he goes back to the pot on the stove. I look sidelong at him— his hair is _definitely_ covering his eyes at this point. How he can see with that bothering him constantly…?  


“Asra.”  


He jolts when I say his name. It’s been a few months of him holding conversations solo, so it’s understandable that he’s not used to me talking yet.  


“Uh— Yes?”  


I put my hand on his shoulder and make him move to stand in front of me.  


“Your… hair. It’s in the way.”  


My hand lifts from his shoulder and reaches up to take the curl between forefinger and thumb, carefully moving it to one side. Asra watches me fuss at him, slack-jawed, and I manage to adjust his hair so I can see near enough his entire face. Which is… Rather nice.  


“That’s better.”  


But neither of us turn back to the dinner on the stove. Asra studies my features, gaze avoiding mine until I drop my hand to my side. He moves, just a slight adjustment— his hair goes right back to normal. My bottom lip juts out in protest and he shakes his head like a dog.  


“You have the messiest hair,” I say, giggling as Asra puts his attention back on the mid-cooked meal. He looks over his shoulder at me, eyes twinkling with mischief.  


“Pfft. I just look scruffy all the time.”  


“Not true,” I protest. “I like your hair.”  


I straighten my arm out to the countertop and the stove salamander scuttles down onto it, getting back into his spot amongst the firewood and watching the two of us. Asra tenses, staring down the spoon between his fingers.  


“And I like yours.” He twists to face me and smiles, pat-patting the top of my head and I laugh. His hand stops and stays atop my head; he seems genuinely _happy,_ making dinner and talking to me. I want to say it’s familiar, even if I know it’s not. Do I? I feel like I’ve been here before… But instead of the salamander lighting the stove, it was… me. Somehow. I look between the stove and my upturned hand, wondering. Fire. The stove crackles as the food cooks atop it, flickering and fading and red, flames licking the bottom of the pot. Warm and welcoming, tingling in my fingertips.  


A ball of flame sits in my palm. Small, weak, and faint, but it’s there. Where fire probably shouldn’t be.  


“Asra…?”  


He turns, rapid and worried at the panic in my tone, and nearly drops the spoon. Asra abandons the dinner and bends slightly, watching the fire in my hand until I close my fingers and extinguish it. He blinks at me, shocked, then starts laughing in bewilderment.  


“I... This is amazing. I figured you'd pick it up again fast, but _this_ quickly?”  


Seemingly without thinking, he takes both my hands in his and presses twin kisses to the backs of them, making my heart trill in surprise.  


“Your magic… It’s— it’s _back.”_


	5. flower

Asra says we’re going somewhere special. Somewhere he’s been waiting to take me to for a while.  


A few months passed since my “magic” came back. He taught me a few… spells. It’s still a foreign concept to me, _magic;_ to think that _I’m_ magic is ridiculous, but it’s old news to Asra. He taught me things as easily as he taught me to walk and talk again— which I’m still not super great at, admittedly, but it’s better than wordless babbling. I can make sentences now, that’s what matters.  


“We’ve been here before, actually,” Asra says, pressing his palm to the door and printing the cross-me-not spell into the wood. “I’m not sure if you remember… It was a while ago, before you could talk as well as you can now. I tried to, ah… I tried something, there, with you. After you woke up.”  


I blink at him, wide-eyed and curious. “What did you try?”  


“Nothing too important,” he answers, quick and please-let’s-change-the-subject. “But we’re coming back today. It’ll be interesting— I wonder what this trip has in store for us.”  


He turns to face me and takes my hands in his. “We’re going to a cave.”  


That’s all he tells me before we set off into the forest. I do remember coming here, once; early in my memory, we walked through this clearing before I found my words. I remember clinging to his arm and trying to figure out how to keep up the conversation, but I could only make incoherent noises at that point. Needless to say I’m glad I can hold my own when he talks to me now.  


Though oddly enough, I can’t remember what happened after we left this part of the forest; there’s yet another empty chunk in my head, just like everything else from before I woke up. I want to ask Asra, but judging by how he reacted when I asked before, he doesn’t want to talk about it. I guess something bad happened and that’s why I forgot.  


Asra leads the way, his hand warm in mine, pointing out roots to step over and where to place my feet. He looks back at me a few times and smiles, like he’s surprised I’m still following after him and keeping pace. He points out two birds, sitting in a tree together— Their eyes glint at me in the early morning sun, making a straight line parallel to the branch they perch on. Asra talks of magic and the elements as if they’re second nature. They might be to him, but not as much to me. Maybe they were, at some point, but now I struggle to lift a rock from the ground, even if I grit my teeth and focus. He says I’ll get the knack of it soon, but… I’m not as sure as he is. He turns water crystal clear with a wave of his hand, parts vines and branches with a flick of his wrist… he makes it look so easy, doing something so hard. I try making the leaves on a fallen twig rustle, but only one dances in my favor.  


“You’ll get it in time.” Asra comes up from behind me and pats my shoulder. “It takes practice, just as any art does.”  


I mumble something about feeling like I’m a child finger-painting if magic is _art,_ and Asra giggles, shaking his head. He ducks down and plucks a flower from the grass at our feet, tucking it behind my ear. “And even the worst finger-painters make masterpieces eventually.”  


“If you say so.” I smile at him, arching a brow. “One day maybe I’ll surpass even you, Asra.”  


“Who’s to say you haven’t already?”  


I start to protest, but he walks ahead of me and balances his way across a log balanced over a pond. “Are you coming?” he asks, hands on his hips and mischievous grin on his lips.  


“If I fall in, you’re in big trouble,” I call after him, and Asra laughs as I make my way across the log bridge, holding his hand out for me to take when I reach the end. I take it and before I get the chance to step down, he waves a gallant arm out to his side, bending in a deep bow and waggling his brows at me. “My radiant companion, our destination awaits.”  


I snort and shake my head at him, hopping down from the log and dropping into a matching bow as I get down to the grass. “Where on earth are we going, anyway?”  


“You’ll see when we get there,” he replies, annoyingly coy and ever mysterious. Thankfully he’s right in being close; he stops at the mouth of a large cave, vines trailing around the entrance and creating a makeshift door. Asra stands at my side and we both stare into the entrance, making out faint outlines of stalagmites in the dark.  


“We’re going in here,” he explains, smiling reassuringly at my badly-hidden look of worry. “I’ll lead us in. Just don’t let go of my hand, okay?”  


I nod, chewing on my bottom lip, but Asra squeezes my hand and starts into the cave. The tunnels vary in shape, widening and narrowing in no particular pattern, but I drag my hand along the wall the whole way. There’s patterns I can’t quite see, embedded in the rock, shapes I can’t follow that I squint at to try and make sense of, but we’re moving too much for me to be able to tell.  


“The magic in here is alive, breathing,” Asra says, breaking the silence. His voice echoes around the cavern. “I’m not sure if you can feel it yet, since you only awakened your powers a short while ago. But… Perhaps it calls to you. It finds you familiar.”  


We pause, and I focus on finding that feeling. There’s something tugging at me, tapping my shoulders and trying to take my hands, pull me forward, but it’s too weak to understand.  


“I… I’m not sure. There’s something there…”  


Asra says nothing, but his nothing still says he’s encouraging. I follow the feeling, stopping every so often to re-focus, but it doesn’t get me far. I sigh.  


“It’s alright. Even if that was just a little bit, it still brought us forward.” He takes us the rest of the way; as we get closer to our destination, the feeling returns in full force— I _definitely_ feel something now, luring Asra and I into an open area of the cave. There’s a pond in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by trees and filled with lily-pads. In the center of the pond sits a white lotus flower, glowing under the sunlight filtering in through the canopy overhead.  


“It’s beautiful in here,” I mumble.  


“Yeah, it is.”  


I must’ve been staring for a while, because as soon as I turn back to Asra he’s already looking at me, smiling. When I meet his eye he startles.  


“I— You must be wondering why I brought you here.”  


Asra lets go of my hand and steps forward, pointing at the pond. “You’re going to get that flower in the middle. It’ll help with honing your magic and bringing more of it back.”  


I’m not sure where my magic went off to in the first place, but I nod, and we walk forward to the edge of the pond. I dip my toe into the water, watching the ripples with what must be a wary expression, because Asra laughs at me. “Whaaat, is it too cold for you?”  


“Pssht. I was making sure it wasn’t _dangerous,_ obviously.”  


It is pretty cold, though.  


“You’ll be fine. You just have to walk across the lily-pads and grab it, alright?”  


“You make it sound easier than it probably is,” I say, but I stick my leg out and drop my foot onto the first lily-pad, carefully balancing atop it. It’s broader than I expected, and thicker, too; it sinks a little, but holds my weight as easily as it’d hold a frog’s.  


Huh. Maybe this will be pretty simple.  


I go to the next lily-pad, finding my previous foothold bounces back up after my weight comes off of it. I look over my shoulder at Asra after the second and third lily-pads, but he doesn’t say a word, watching me with something unreadable on his features. As I keep walking towards the flower, the pond seems to get wider— I know I’ve moved, but my goal still seems so far away. The clearing falls silent and the water shines under the sunlight, but it occurs to me suddenly that I have no idea how far I’ve gone. I turn around.  


Asra’s _leagues_ away, a white-topped dot on the horizon, but a chill rushes through me, icy and apprehensive. I don’t need to see his expression or hear his words to know he’s telling me to _keep moving._  


There’s just one lily-pad left until I reach the flower now, but they’ve grown wider as I walked; it takes five steps to cross the penultimate pad, and three to reach the middle of the last one— and the flower. It’s… giant.  


I pluck it from the lily-pad and the bloom fills both my hands, a heady scent overwhelming my senses and making my eyes fall shut of their own accord. The stem curls and brushes over my feet. The water ripples beneath, the lily-pad rumbling from an unknown force. Should I have picked it? Even with my limited knowledge of magic, the power emanating from the flower feels like too _much._ I turn back to Asra, wanting to ask thousands of questions at once as something whispers them to me, wanting answers to things I don’t know about, things about _choices_ and _hearts_ and _forgetting._ I feel lightheaded.  


The lily-pad cracks into two perfect halves and I fall into the water between them.  


I sink under and the rush of cold makes me yelp, filling my mouth with water and my head with bubbles. I go to swim upwards, but something holds me down under. I can’t move. My arms float around my head but I can’t make them propel me back up. My legs stay stuck still and my body starts to fall deeper into the depths (who knew a pond would be this deep anyway?), black at the edges of my sight, my chest heavy and mouth full of water. So much for bringing my magic back— it’s gonna drown with the rest of me.  


A splash echoes above and I find Asra swimming downwards, cheeks puffed full of air, wide-eyed as he takes my hands and _pulls;_ whatever held me down there lets go and we break the surface with simultaneous gasps, blindly searching for the edge of the pond and clinging to it with wet, slimy hands. Well, Asra does, anyway. I cling to Asra instead and curl my fingers in his clothes as the panic of _oh my god I nearly drowned_ sets in. At least Asra’s shirt is already wet as I hide my face against his shoulder, and for the first time in my new allotted memory, I cry.  


He murmurs my name into the top of my head and holds me tight against his chest, any previous qualms I’ve noticed from him about getting too close fading away as he puts a hand on the back of my head, his other arm around my waist. Asra sniffs and I look up to find he’s tearing up, too.  


“You got so far away!”  


I blurt it out before I think about it. My voice cracks midway, a worried hiccup interrupting me, and I swallow the lump in my throat.  


“Maybe you weren’t supposed to look back… I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you here.” Asra puts me at arms’ length and turns serious, both pairs of our watery eyes bearing into the other’s. “Please, I need to teach you a spell.”  


Right now?  


“Right now. If you remember to use it, this will never happen again.”  


Asra helps me balance on my own in the water and he tells me about this new spell: I can use it when I’m underwater and it’ll convince my body that no, I don’t need to breathe. I stare at him, confused, but Asra tells me to trust him.  


So I do.  


“Take a deep breath… And let it last. Imagine it spreading through your body, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.”  


I suck in a breath and visualize it as he said— a blue light, like the sky, taking over my body from top to bottom and filling me with enough air to last me a lifetime.  


“Try it. Go underwater and try it out.”  


I nod at him before I drop under the water, still imagining the air inside me, keeping me safe from drowning until I can— right, I still need to breathe. I come back up seconds later, coughing into my elbow.  


“Are you alri—“  


“I can do it.” I look to him after my coughing fit subsides, determined fists loosening as I mold my frustration into focus and take in another deep, deep breath. I let myself fall slowly into the water with the visual of the blue light around me, because no, I don’t need to breathe. I’m part of the pond now, another creature in the depths. It’s exhilarating, to realize I don’t need air anymore. Asra dunks under when I stay down for too long for his liking, but when his hands cup my jaw and worried eyes search my face, he must find what he’s looking for. Asra smiles, the sunlight casting shimmering shadows across his proud features, and we come back up at the same time.  


“You learn fast,” he says, a lighthearted chuckle rumbling through him. “Oh, c’mere. You’ve got, ah…”  


He reaches forward and peels some sort of plant off my shoulder, dropping it back into the water. He watches it float away from us, and as I follow the path I realize the flower returned to the center of the lily-pad in the middle of the pond. It seems so far away now.  


“I guess so,” I reply half-heartedly. “The flower decided it was high time for me to drown, instead.”  


When I turn back to Asra I find he’s staring at me, a familiar warmth in his eyes. It’s that same warmth from every time I catch him looking at me when I’m not looking at him, when he holds my hand and squeezes, when he touches me in any capacity. He taught me the word for it last week, with a soft voice and downcast eyes. Affection.  


“Asra?”  


“Huh, what?”  


I narrow my eyes at him. “What am I to you?”  


The question startles him, obviously, but he regains neutral composure with remarkable speed. “Well, at this point… I’d say you’re my student.”  


“Student?”  


“Mhm.” Asra doesn’t look at me. Instead, he stares down into the water, watching his reflection. “I’m teaching you magic, after all. I can teach you more, if you’d like.”  


“Was that what you were doing before?” I ask quietly, dragging my fingertips through the water in favor of meeting his eye.  


“Before wh— Oh. Before… Yes, it was.” He pushes himself up onto the edge of the pond and wrings out his shirt, stuck flush against his skin. “You were my… my apprentice, before then. I taught you magic, all sorts.”  


When we finally look at each other again he smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. I get out of the water and sit at his side, dangling my feet in and wringing the excess water out of my clothes. “Am I still your apprentice, then?”  


“If you’d like to be,” he replies airily, and I find myself nodding without hesitation.  


“I would. Please teach me more magic… you are a _master_ of it.”  


“Master?” Asra blushes scarlet, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, if that’s what you’d like to call me…”  


He gets up and walks back towards his bag and scarf, dropped into the grass from when he jumped in to save me, and I climb out soon after. Comfortable silence accompanies us on the walk back to the shop and Asra opens the door, nearly falling up the stairs as he goes to get changed, and when he bumps against a bookshelf something drops off.  


“I got it—”  


I pick up the small, velvet bag in one hand, but nearly drop it in shock. The energy radiating from this bag seems to come from twenty directions at once, overlapping and interrupting each other, and I realize they’re _voices._ Quiet, distant, like whispers just outside my earshot. I open the bag slowly, holding my hand underneath it to hold the contents.  


A stack of cards flies out and into my palm, previously neatly stacked, now messy and fanned out as I caught them all. One falls onto the floor, face-down, and when I pick it up and flip it, a fox-headed person looks up at me, arms crossed, something devious and curious in its eye. I strain to hear it over the other cards chattering at me.  


“… Questions… Your master… Do you know him like he knows you?"  


The fox falls silent after that, as well as the rest of the cards. I flip through all of them, finding beautiful illustrations of animals and nature, each card as intricate as the one before it. Did Asra draw these? What are they? Why can I _hear_ them? Can he hear them too?  


Do I know him like he knows me?  


It’s been a year since the day I woke up, yet I feel like I know nothing about my master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end of year one of three.
> 
> (some of the dialogue when they're in the pond is straight from asra's route, book VIII, chapter two -- credit goes to the arcana writers for those few lines!)
> 
> (also thank you for reading!)


	6. reversed

I hold onto the pack of cards tight in one nervous hand as I go upstairs, thousands of questions on my tongue that can’t get past my teeth. Asra’s already made two cups of tea, his scarf in a pile on the bed, intertwined with Faust and painting her burgundy. I make a point to tread on the creaking floorboard to get his attention; it works like a charm. (We really need to fix that floorboard.)

“Oh, there you are. I wondered if you got lost on the way up,” he jokes, grinning at me without a care. I wonder if he’s aware of how much he hides. He must be.

I hold up the cards in one hand, arching a brow when he comes closer. “Master… What are these?”

He blinks, squints, and startles when he realizes what I hold. “Where did you find them?”

“They fell off the bookshelf.” I start shuffling through them as he stops in front of me, looking down between us as each card shows its face. “They’re amazing art, whatever they are.”

I look back up to find him watching me; he takes a step backwards when he notes how my breath ruffles his hair. “Oh, heh, thanks… it took a while to get the colors right for all of them.”

“So you _did_ make these?” 

Asra nods. Yet another thing I didn’t know about him.

“I did make them. It was a while ago now when I did, but…” 

His sentence peters off, lost in an unspeakable thought. I get to the end of the deck and file them into a neat pile, which he takes from my palm.

“So, what are they? Unless they really are just for show,” I ask, and Asra’s smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes. He thinks for a moment before waving at the table with the teacups on top.

“Why don’t I show you?”

He sits across from me and shuffles the cards slowly, watching me for any sort of reaction, before he places the pile atop the table and fans them out in a wide arc in front of me. I can’t see the animals anymore, or any of their faces— the cards, curiously, are all face-down.

“Pick three cards,” Asra starts, waving his hand over the table. “The three that reach out to you.”

“But I can’t see them,” I mumble, leaning forward to squint at the backs of the cards as they shine under the lamplight. Asra laughs.

“That’s the point.” When I look to him quizzically, his smirk only widens as he takes a drink from his cup. “You pick them at random, but three must be calling to you. Listen for them.”

I listen. At first there is silence, loud and accusatory throughout the room. I close my eyes, focus, and then I hear the voices again. Far away and incoherent, but… Calling. I hold my hand over the arc of cards and when the voices grow louder, I pick the card my hand hovers over. Asra tells me to put the cards down on my end of the table, exactly as I picked them up, in the same order.

“These represent your past—“

He points at the left-most card, the one that seemed to repeat the same noise at me.

“Your present—“

Then the middle card; the only familiar voice.

“And your future.”

He taps the right-most card. It didn’t so much call to me as drag my hand to it by itself. I stare at the cards in turn before looking to Asra for further guidance.

“We’ll flip them in that order. Okay? I’m ready when you are.”

I chew the inside of my lip, out of nerves, before flipping the left card face-up. A grey dragon holding a sword, backlit by the sun. “ACE” is written beneath it, but I have to turn my head to read it properly.

“It’s upside down.” I glance at Asra, brow furrowed. “Did I do it wrong…?”

“No, no, you’re fine,” he reassures, smiling warmly. “That’s supposed to happen. The cards have different meanings based on whether you get them upright, or— in this case— reversed.”

He looks down at the dragon card and nods thoughtfully.

“The ace of swords. Reversed.”

He closes his eyes this time, lips slightly parted as he… thinks? Listens to the card? I want to interrupt and ask, but I figure I’ll save my questions ’til the end of the reading. Asra opens his eyes.

“There are obstacles in the way, stalling your plans in the beginning of their fruition. It might be frustrating, but don’t let doubt distract you— focus, reassess, and try again.”

Now that I think about it, that could make sense. When I first woke up, it took me multiple tries to walk, talk, and cast spells (as the most recent endeavor, at least). I kept trying, though. 

“That… makes sense.” I pick up the card and trace the lines of the dragon’s scales with my fingertip, studying it with new eyes. Asra plucks the card from my hand and puts it back on the table, shaking his head fondly at me, even if his face looks awfully red.

“We’ve got two more yet, remember,” he says, waggling his brows at me. “Flip the next one.”

I do. I recognize it.

“This one talked to me earlier,” I blurt out, and Asra jolts like he sees a ghost. “When I found the cards. This one came out of the bag first and— oh, er. That sounds silly, doesn’t it…?”

Asra blinks wide eyes at me, apparently in a state of shock. “You heard— you heard the Magician?”

“The Magician?” The fox winks at me from the face of the card. Might’ve just been a trick of the light. “They didn’t… I didn’t know their name. They talked to me, but they sounded far away. The others did, too.”

“The others—?” Asra suddenly regains composure, and he beams at me, pleased. “That means you really are growing stronger if you can hear the major arcana already. You continue to astound me.”

“What are… Well, _who_ are the major arcana? Are they the name for all the cards?”

“Not quite.” Asra taps the Magician’s card. “The Magician is one of the major arcana in a tarot deck— that’s the name of the cards. There are twenty-two major arcana per deck, but they’re depicted differently with each one. They’re all different; this is how I imagined the Magician when I made the deck.”

I hum in quiet understanding, but I’m still puzzled. “Then… why is this one reversed, too?”

Asra’s gaze slides down to the card— he must not have realized, since it’s technically upright for him. He frowns, but doesn’t feel the need to focus on listening to this one. He waits, silent, before sighing and meeting my eye.

“The Magician is a… difficult card, at times,” he mutters, staring into the fox’s purple eyes. “He doesn’t answer, but rather leaves you with more questions. He has a way of making things sound far sweeter than they really are.”

Sounds familiar.

“Beware of false truths from charming liars. They… They can’t keep their promises.”

Asra seems upset. He can’t look away from the card. I swear I catch a brief look of annoyance cross his usually closed-off features, but it melts into his typical, even smile when he realizes I’m looking.

“Alright, last card. Ready?”

Ready as I’ll ever be. I flip it over.

The card sticks to my fingers. I can’t let it go once I flip it face-up. This is the one that nearly dragged my hand to it when I chose them earlier, the one that had some sort of pull on me... I’m not sure why. Asra does, because all color drains from his face when I put the card on the table. 

“Death?”

He whispers it, near fearful. The card drapes a shroud of dread over my shoulders, leaving me cold, and I shiver.

“That’s not— no. There’s no way you could’ve… But…” 

“Asra, what are you talking about?”

He jumps when I speak, like he forgot I’m in the room with him, and looks into my eyes with such panic that it makes me sit back in my seat. He must read the momentary shock on my features because he reaches out, just for a moment, before his hand falls back under the table. Asra looks disappointed— but it’s definitely not with me.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“It’s okay—“

“No, I didn’t mean to scare you—“

“You didn’t,” I insist, but he doesn’t believe me for a second. I look down at the card again, picking it up between forefinger and thumb, watching the light hit the dark empties the skull bears as eyes. I still can’t hear it properly; it speaks to me in a whisper, soft but stinging the back of my head. I can’t listen to it, but somehow, I understand it.

“I don’t think it means… Death,” I say into the quiet. Asra watches me curiously. 

“You don’t?”

“Maybe… Maybe it means some sort of transformation. Everything comes to an end, right?”

Asra flinches.

“We shouldn’t be scared of change.” It doesn’t feel like my voice in my mouth anymore. I roll it around on my tongue and taste ash. “Beauty lies… in the transition.”

Asra doesn’t say anything after that. I can tell he’s contemplating what I said— or what… the card said? The off taste is gone, now, and I feel lighter for some reason. 

“Change isn’t always good, though. Is it?”

I look to Asra and find he’s staring at the table, pensive. Faust appears from underneath and drapes herself over his shoulders, rubbing the top of her head on his cheek.

“Sometimes it hurts. It’s not intentional, mostly, but… accidents happen in change. Bad accidents. Some you… some you can’t fix.”

He starts gathering the cards together with shaking fingers, piling them together to slide back into his little bag. I don’t know how he’ll react, but he looks so sad… I reach over the table and take his hand in mine. Asra stops, and his gaze burns furrows in my skin as it drags from our joined hands to my face. He smiles, but like before, his eyes don’t match the rest of him.

“What’s the matter, Asra?” I ask him, softly, and I feel his shudder before I see it. “You can… You can tell me, can’t you?”

His pause is worryingly long. 

“Ah, it’s nothing, really. The Death card is a tough one to read sometimes,” he says nonchalantly, watching a spot over my shoulder. “I’m surprised you managed to hear it. I’m— I’m glad you’re, ah, learning so quickly.”

“Asra—“

“It’s rather late, isn’t it? We should be getting to bed.” His interruption follows his hand waving over the velvet bag with the tarot cards inside; the bag disappears, and the lights in the room dim to a faint glow. “Go get some rest, hm? You need your beauty sleep, after all.”

At last, his smile seems genuine as he gently cups my cheek in his palm. It’s light, non-committal, and the touch ends nearly as soon as it starts. 

“I’m alright. Really. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I get ready for bed with Asra’s words replaying in my head; change isn’t always good, he said. Sometimes you can’t fix the things that shift and change. He sounded so desolate and looked so terrified when I spoke from what the card told me, and unlike the other, many mysteries associated with my master, this one I know I won’t be able to unravel.

I fall asleep with the whispers of the Death card just out of earshot. 

 

_It’s too warm. Hot. Scorching. Searing and blistering—_

_I can’t stand up, I can’t move. I’m trapped, somewhere, and even when I bang on the surfaces of my container, my hands don’t look like mine. It’s dark, hot, I’m stuck, I don’t know what’s going on—_

_My head hurts when I try to figure out how I got here. I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember? I try again, but it makes blood roar in my ears, harmonizing with the sound of sizzling skin._

_It’s_ my _skin. Why is it my skin? It’s not my skin. I know this is my body, but at the same time, it’s not. It hurts. Everything hurts._

_Where’s Asra? Where’s anyone? Where am I?_

_I pound on the top of the box I’m in and shout, but the heat cauterizes my throat and my voice dies in the flame. I try, again, again, again— but it’s no use. I’m alone._

_But I know why I’m here. I’m here because of the… of the…_

_Everything goes white and red and I’m shrieking, for help, for a savior, for someone, I can’t feel my legs, my arms, my_ anything _anymore—_

 

Someone shouts my name and someone holds my shoulders with strong, warm hands. I don’t realize I’m screaming until my throat runs raw and my voice fades out to a whimper. The lights flick on slowly and I remember.

I’m in bed, legs tangled between the sheets and one of the multiple pillows sits on the floor, the others strewn about me; I was thrashing around a lot, it seems. Bad dream. I can’t remember what it was. Why am I so warm?

Asra. Asra kneels in front of me, hands on my shoulders, face just inches away. He stares at me with such a horrified expression that I nearly start crying again. 

I was crying? My head hurts. My eyes feel dry and heavy, vision’s blurry. I can make out exactly how upset Asra is, though. It makes my chest feel heavy and sad.

“Asra?” My voice comes out in a croak, foreign and tired-toned. He doesn’t react. He’s fixated on my eyes, for some reason. Probably because they’re so bloodshot from crying and the lack of real good sleep.

… He’s crying. Silent, scared tears that streak down his face, his lips parted from the words he tried to say but lost somewhere along the way.

“Asra.”

His breath catches, but he can’t reply. I remember, suddenly, last time something like this happened: I had a nightmare on a different night, woke up panicking and forgetting how to breathe, and Asra showed me how to calm down. He covered my eyes with his hand, closed his, and we breathed together until I remembered how to use my lungs again. He helped me, so I’ll help him too.

I close my eyes, searching from Asra’s hand on my shoulder up to his face, delicately sliding my palm over his eyes until I feel his lashes against my skin, eyelids closing. I suck in a deep breath, shuddering and nervous, and he follows suit; we hold our air in for a few seconds, then let them out in long, extended exhales. We repeat the breathing until I feel better and his tears aren’t dripping onto my hand anymore. 

“It’s alright, Asra. We’re okay. Look at me.”

When I move my hand and open my eyes, Asra keeps his closed. He seems hesitant.

“Please.”

He slowly, slowly, opens his eyes… and sighs in relief. I want to ask what scared him so, but now, obviously, isn’t the time.

Asra breathes my name into the small space between us, leaning forward until his forehead bumps against mine. He won’t take his eyes off me now that he’s opened them. 

“You’re okay.”

“We’re both okay,” I reaffirm, and Asra simply hums in reply. His hands travel from my shoulders to the sides of my face, his thumbs wiping away the leftover tracks the tears left over. I grab his wrists and hold him there in a silent plea. _Don’t go. Not yet._

“Ah… Can I…” 

He falters, swallows, and tries again. 

“Can I sleep here? With— with you? If not it’s alright, of course, but… I think we both need the comfort right now.”

He’s not wrong. Faust winds around our hands, turning to Asra in a conversation that falls on my deaf ears. She rubs against my cheek; I smile with a sniffle and a nod.

“I think we do.”

We readjust so we both fit on his bed, fluffing certain pillows and dropping others onto the pile of furs alongside. Faust slithers into the fluff and curls herself into a spiral, head resting atop a pale grey fur, red eyes watching us in our awkwardness. I lie down with Asra, both rigid on our backs, until we turn our heads to each other in sync. I’m not sure who starts first, but we both start giggling at ourselves. He turns onto his side to face me, quirks a brow in question, and when I nod he very, very carefully wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me into him. My hand instinctively lands on the left side of his chest— his pulse hammers at a mile a minute against my touch. 

Is he always this nervous around me? 

I cautiously wrap my arm around him too, my other hand on the small of his back, and the second we’re connected from knee to shoulder he relaxes… and pulls me closer, somehow. His heartbeat evens out as he falls asleep, but even in unconsciousness he finds comfort in touching me. Asra’s hand wanders across my spine, my waist, the back of my neck, until it settles on my hip, satisfied. My fingers instinctively clutch at his shirt, and I tuck my head into his shoulder, breathing him in.

I know Asra and I are close. As one half of our whole, I know we’re at least friends, if not something close to best friends. But friends don’t let their hands travel across their friend’s body when they sleep in the same bed together. Friends don’t sleep together like this, with his heartbeat lulling me to sleep and his lips pressed to the top of my head.

Not like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen i don't know Nuffin about tarot readings-- the card readings came from my interpretations and the arcana tarot deck wiki page!


	7. suspicious

Asra and I share the bed now. It doesn’t faze me as much as something in me tells me it should, but it feels… right. Whenever he stopped asking me if he could join me and slipped into bed alongside, it felt like we’d slept like that forever.

(And now I feel less guilty for him taking the pile of furs on the sofa.)

Though he’s not with me every night. Asra started leaving me and Faust at the shop more often since I “got my magic back”; he’ll disappear for two or three days at a time, leaving nothing but a note on the kitchen table, bringing back nothing but the feeling of waking up with his legs tangled with mine, arms around my middle and breath tickling the back of my neck. I’m tempted to go into town and ask someone if they know where he disappears to— the baker, perhaps— but the night I decide I’ll ask in the morning, he returns before the sun rises.

This time, when he comes back, a veritable library of thick tomes follows him, books in stacks nearly as tall as he is. They’re written in strange dialects that I can’t decipher, even though Asra taught me to read last year. The first one has an odd, circular symbol on it, but when I turn to ask Asra about it, he swipes the book from my hand and tucks it into his bag.

“Getting nosy now, huh?” His question comes teasingly, and his smirk only proves it.

“I wanted to know what it’s about,” I reply, trying to snatch his bag away so I can take the book back, but he bobs and weaves away from my curious hands. “Come _ooooon,_ why can’t I see?”

“I get to read it first. Finder’s keepers.” He winks and finally lets me take his bag, but when I open it, only Faust sits inside. She sticks her tongue out at me, grinning with as much mischief as her master.

“Faust, did you _eat_ it?” 

I scoop her out of the bag and she slithers up to my shoulders, rubbing her head on Asra’s outstretched fingers, and the two of them look at each other.

“Maybe she did,” Asra says, tilting his head to one side, “but maybe she didn’t. She’ll never tell.”

I roll my eyes at them both, but Asra just laughs. “Anyway, what are all these books for?” I ask.

Faust relocates from me to him as he picks out an armful of specific books from atop a pile near the bookshelf. “These books are focused in specific kinds of magic— water, earth, healing, the like. I wanted to see if one stuck out to you.”

He lays the books out across the table and I read through the titles; there’s the ones he mentioned, then fire, psychic, wind, and alchemy. None of them particularly stand out immediately, but they’re all buzzing with potential energy. I pick up the alchemy book and squint at it in the faint light from the window above the sink.

“So we’re just going to read them all until one speaks to me?” 

Asra nods, scooping up the rest of the books and putting them back atop the stack that nearly brushes the ceiling. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take, but I’m sure one will jump out in time.” He does a double-take at the book I picked up and snorts at me. “And, naturally, you picked the hardest one. You always liked a challenge.”

“I did?” His wording puzzles me for a minute. I guess learning walking and talking and all that was a challenge, but I’m pretty certain he doesn’t mean those.

“I-I mean, from what I’ve seen of you. So far. You like challenging yourself to go beyond expectations,” he stutters through, running a hand through his hair. Faust looks at him with as much concern a snake could portray. 

“Well… that’s true, I suppose.” Apparently my reaction is the right one, as Asra lets out a long breath and turns his attention back to the books. “Which one should I start with? If this is the hardest one.”

Asra swaps the alchemy book to the water book, and it feels lighter in my hands already. “Try this one. If you get around… let’s say, half-way in and nothing’s really clicking, we’ll move on to the next one. Sound good?”

Sounds good to me. We sit in the sunbeam coming through the window and get to work reading-- me with the book about water magic, and he takes the fire one, to “make sure our food gets cooked properly,'' he says. I stay away from the fire book for now. 

Neither of us really notice how time passes until his stomach growls as our makeshift alarm; Faust picks her head up from her curled up self and bleps at us both. Asra shrugs sheepishly at me, one hand flat on his middle.

“Whoops. Time flies when you’re having fun, huh?” 

“That’s one word for it.” Reading gets arduous when you power through three dense books in one afternoon. 

Asra laughs. “That means it’s time for me to go, then.”

“What?”

He’s leaving _again?_

“I told you this morning, didn’t I?” Asra stands, brushes dust off his thighs, and starts getting ready to go. Again. He most certainly _didn’t_ tell me he was leaving, but he’s a magician on a mission as he quickly makes various items fly through the kitchen and into his bag. Faust and I look at each other; she looks as confused as I feel. Asra grabs a leftover loaf of bread and wraps it in his scarf, placing it gently at the top of his bag before folding the flap over it.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere you need to worry your lovely head over.” Asra grins at me and my stuttering protest, standing in front of me and crouching down to my level. His hand moves to the top of my head, ghosting down to hold my jaw in his palm, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone. 

“I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry, okay?”

Without thinking, I grab his wrist as he goes to pull away, holding his hand to me for a moment longer. He’s warm, and only gets warmer when I look at him, my brows knitted together.

“Be safe. Please.” 

I don’t know where he goes, what he does or why he leaves. But I need him to come back in one piece. Asra’s eyes soften and he nods, gently pulling his hand back from me. 

“I will.”

And if he doesn’t make sure of it, then _I_ will.

— — — — —

I wait until he rounds the corner to gently click the shop’s door shut behind me, mumbling the cross-me-not spell above the handle with one hand and pulling the hood of my cloak up with the other. He’s not far, I can still sense that; Faust nudges my jaw and seems to shake her head at me in disagreement.

“I need to find out where he goes, Faust,” I whisper, squinting through the humid mist for Asra’s telltale silhouette. “He keeps leaving. I’m worried about him.”

I’m not sure why I’m so worried, to be honest. He’s a much better magician than I— _he_ is the one teaching _me,_ after all— but I can’t help but wonder where he slinks off to as I duck behind shop stalls and abandoned carts to follow him through town. Does he have other friends that he goes to hang out with that he doesn’t want me to meet? I stop in my tracks.

Is that why he doesn’t let me go to the South End, to that building with the bird on the sign?

Faust nudges me again. She points her head towards the outskirts of town, where Asra starts to head into… the forest? Faust and I peek from around the edge of a building, and sure enough, he ducks under the canopy of trees after looking behind him, making sure he isn’t followed. Faust and I glance at each other before we go in after. 

The sun set a while ago, so it’s hard to find footing amidst the tree roots and twigs. It occurs to me that I can make my own light— Asra taught me how a few weeks ago, it shouldn’t be too hard. I focus, holding my open palm up, and I concentrate on the feeling of warmth in the light. A small ball of flame pops up between my fingers, faint and flickering but feasible to walk with and avoid tripping. Faust sticks her tongue out at me in approval.

I find my way carefully, stepping over obstacles as I follow Asra’s magic; it’s an easy sense, something so familiar now that it comes nearly second nature. His direction doesn’t stay on the regular beaten path I walk along, though, and I climb over rocks and fallen trees to keep going in his direction. Faust coils tighter around my shoulders, hiding in my hood, and I go to comfort her when I hear a noise. An unfortunately close and loud noise. Asra’s magic flares, then goes very, very quiet.

“Asra?”

His name travels through the wind of the leaves, but no reply comes. I call louder, focusing harder on what little of his magic I can sense, until something else catches my attention— something small, barely-there, but it stops me in front of a tree cracked in half by lightning, bent over forwards and blocking my path in an upside-down ”L”. 

It’s magic, I can feel that much, but I don’t recognize whose it is or where it’s coming from. It feels familiar, somehow… but at the same time, when I try to remember, it makes my head hurt. Asra told me not to try to remember, but I don’t know what I forgot. Whatever this is seems to know me, and it knows me well; it raises goosebumps on my arms and loosens my tense shoulders, happy but haunting at the same time. It tries to touch me, but I only feel cold.

I can’t understand what this is, but it’s pulling me in, dragging me further into the forest. What am I here for? I don’t remember… Someone… I was following someone.

A familiar voice calls out to me, on the edge of my earshot, and it’s when a blast of magic shoots past me that I snap back to recognition— the magic disappears as soon as it came, leaving me alone among the trees. No, not alone. Not quite.

Asra.

How could I forget?

“Are you okay? What was that?” He rushes to me and turns me to face him; I blink back grogginess and nod, shrugging my shoulders under his nervous hands. 

“I’m fine, d’n worry,” I reply, sleep clogging my voice. It doesn’t reassure Asra, who cups my face in both hands and studies it carefully for any sign of something off. He doesn’t find one, dropping his hands.

“Thank goodness.” He sighs in relief before looking back at me, startled. “What are you doing out here?! I told you to stay back at the shop, didn’t I?”

Faust changes hands and climbs onto Asra’s shoulders, thankful for the return of her master, and I try to remember why I’m out here in the first place. Whatever that force was… It tried to whisper something to me. I could hear it, barely, but I know it was there.

I shouldn’t tell Asra. He’s worried enough as it is.

“I wanted to see where you go when you leave,” I admit. “Where you disappear off to for days at a time. It gets… it gets lonely at home.”

He steps forward when I bow my head down, staring at my feet, and he tries to catch my eye. I reach out and take his hand, refusing to look at him.

“I miss you.” 

Asra flinches. It’s the first time I’ve told him that. 

“I… I miss you too.”

He pulls me into a hug and sighs, his fingers curling into my clothes. His heartbeat thuds against my chest, quickened in pace, and he mumbles something against my skin that I just barely catch.

“You have no idea how much I miss you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i decided to cut this project down by quite a few chapters -- it was originally going to be fifteen, but my interest in the arcana has waned significantly, so it's just gonna be ten now. i WILL finish this though, i'm Determined
> 
> sorry this one's so short - i've been mad busy recently and haven't had chance to write as much for fun as i do for grad school. rip.
> 
> REGARDLESS
> 
> thank you for reading! i hope you're enjoying it :) come say hi to me on tumblr at @rosebarsoap!


	8. intertwined

Asra continues to disappear to unknown places over the next few months, but he makes sure that I _don’t_ follow him anymore. He waits until morning and leaves when I’m asleep so the door clicks shut behind me as I wake. Faust looks just as dejected as I feel when he leaves; whenever he comes back she squeezes herself around his shoulders and chest in a slithery hug. 

He’s gone when I rise today, but he left a note on the back of a piece of cardstock— _I’ll be lonely until the next time I can wake up to your sleeping face. Be back soon._ I flip the card over to find he signed it and doodled a little Faust. She looks very pleased.

After scouring the kitchen for breakfast materials, I find we’re out of quite a few things, and with a lot of time on my hands until Asra comes back (allegedly), I may as well be productive with it. Faust stays resolutely tucked inside the bundle of fur and scarves on the bed, comfy and content, so I leave her behind on this grocery trip, locking the door and shouldering my bag. The walk into town is quiet, given the hour. The busy period of the market comes later in the morning, when people are actually awake. 

I make my way through several stalls and find the stuff on the scribbled list I made earlier, squishing everything into my bag. I’m headed towards the fruit stall when someone’s conversation makes me halt in my tracks.

“I hate that it’s so _close_ , y’know? On the edge of my eyeline at all times,” the spice seller complains, nodding at me when I turn to her table. “Constant reminder of it all, right?”

“Yeah, it’s creepy as all hell,” the halva seller replies. “Hate that damn island out there. Gives me the willies.”

“Excuse me— what island do you mean?” I ask, butting into the conversation and pretending to examine a small container of cayenne. “The one off the coast from here?”

“Mhm, the Lazaret. Are you new ‘round here?” The spice seller squints at me, trying to recall. “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

“Oh, you’re Asra’s friend, right? His roommate or something?”

“Or something,” I mutter, but the halva seller’s eyes light up in recognition when I nod. “Yeah, that’s me. What’s the Lazaret?”

The two sellers glance at each other, the jovial mood fading as the sun ducks behind a passing cloud.

“As familiar as you look, if you don’t know the Lazaret… you really are new, huh.” The halva seller sighs and leans forward; myself and the spice seller do the same. “Twenty years ago, almost, fella came ‘round here and started runnin’ the place with a golden fist. Not my favorite Count we’ve had, but Lucio had to do, I suppose.

Soon after he showed up, people started getting sick. The water ran red with it. I left, went off to Nevivon for a spell before comin’ back home, see, so I’m clean. Penelope, on the other hand…”

“My wife— she fell to the plague a few years past,” the spice seller admits, taking her necklace into one hand and holding it against her chest. When she drops it, I get a better look at the wedding ring glinting in the faint sunlight. “Poor Penelope. Even the doctors at the palace couldn’t help her at that point.”

“I-I’m sorry,” I stutter, unsure of how else to reply. Asra hasn’t taught me how to deal with sadness; the one time I asked, he looked so heartbroken that I changed the subject.

“It’s alright. Happened at least six or so years ago, now.” She smiles sadly at me. “But back to you, Davos.”

The halva seller nods, untying his apron as he talks. “Yeah, it was a real mess, that Red Plague. Thousands of people died from it— that’s what the island was for. The bodies. Like I said, I went to Nevivon to escape it, came back a bit later—”

“And it was gone! Just like that.” The spice seller snaps her fingers. “Strange, right?”

“Isobel, you stole my dramatic line,” Davos whines, but his smirk is teasing. “But she’s right— Plague disappeared nearly two years back. Few weeks after Count Lucio died.”

“Was _murdered_ ,” Isobel corrects, arching a brow. “Do you know the story— oh, we never asked for your name! I’m Isobel, and Davos over here is resident history-teller.”

I tell them my name and shake two pairs of world-worn hands. Davos smiles, and they both say how nice it is to meet me, Asra’s “roommate”, at last. Apparently they’ve seen us at the market before but never got a chance to talk to me, since I was, predictably, always with Asra.

“It’s nice to meet you both as well,” I reply, “But I don’t know the story, actually— was the Count really murdered?”

“Sure was. Murdered in his own bed on his _birthday_.”

“Murdered by his doctor, too! Doctor Devorak was such a smart man, he helped Penelope when she got sick,” Isobel adds, shaking her head.

“Doctor… Devorak?” The name sounds familiar, but whenever I last heard it, a slight twinge of disgust tainted Asra’s explanation.

“He was the Palace’s best doc, see,” Davos says. “Him, Countess Nadia, and your Asra were all at the Palace when Lucio was killed. Studyin’ the Plague and stuff, I think.”

“And Countess Nadia’s so _lovely_ ,” Isobel sighs. “Don’t have any idea why she’d marry _Lucio_.”

“You’re mad she didn’t marry _you_ ,” Davos teases, dodging Isobel’s swinging punch. “But anyway, rumor has it Devorak murdered Lucio before the Plague took him. He’d been sick with it for _years_ , even though most people didn’t last a week. Those Southern genes, I guess.”

It’s a lot of information to take at once. Asra hasn’t told me _any_ of it, let alone that he worked at the Palace at some point. Isobel catches my confusion and asks, “What’s the matter?”

“Oh… It’s fine, really,” I lie, shaking my head. “Just a lot to, um, learn.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty scary stuff,” Davos nods, “but it’s all done ‘n dusted now, I suppose. Nadia’s runnin’ the place pretty well on her own. You said you didn’t know any of it— didn’t Asra fill you in when you moved here?”

That’s one way to describe it.

“No, he… he didn’t.” I look over my shoulder, towards the direction of the shop. He won’t be back yet; his note said “soon”, meaning any time between a few hours or a few days. He only left this morning.

“Peculiar. Figured he’d tell you, of all people,” Isobel says, fiddling with various jars of spices. “You two have always been attached at the hip.”

“We have?”

Davos jumps like he’s seen a ghost. He mumbles something I barely catch-- but _familiar_ is the last word off his tongue before he makes an excuse about needing to check on his stock, and he disappears into his shop.

Isobel doesn’t seem to notice and she says, “Well, you should ask Asra about it, if you can. I’m sure he’s got all the hot gossip on what went on in the Palace at that point. Unless there’s anything I can answer for you, anyways.”

There’s one question I know Asra would never tell me the answer to.

“How do I get to the Lazaret?”

Apparently there aren’t boats to actually get on the Lazaret, but Isobel guides me to the docks. They’re very much abandoned; everyone steers clear of the area, save for a few straggling seagulls that pick at litter on the sand behind me. I’m not fussed by the company.

What holds my full attention is the island.

It really does _loom_ over the coast of Vesuvia, dark and cold. Too far off to really see, but its presence is all one really needs, dropping a heavy dread to settle in the pit of my stomach. 

_“That’s what the island was for. The bodies.”_

I shiver, even though it’s well into summer at this point, and pull my cloak closer around my shoulders. Isobel said the bodies were burned when I pressed her for more details about it, even as her sun-darkened skin paled, and she asked me why I wanted to know so much about the Lazaret. I told her since I was “new”, I figured I should know more about Vesuvia’s history, as grisly as it is.

I figured I shouldn’t tell her how familiar it felt when she and Davos mentioned it.

It feels like I’ve been here before, to stand at the edge of the dock and stare out, out into the ocean at the island. My feet stick resolutely to the water-worn wood but my gut tells me that I need to _go_ , go to the island, step inside the once-smoking building and— and then what? What happens then? It’s abandoned, if legend serves right. The plague and the burning and the loss ended two years ago—

And two years ago was when I woke up in Asra’s old home, held up by shaking arms as unfamiliar eyes bore into mine. Two years ago.

I know who I need to ask. Who knows if he’ll give me answers.

— — — — —

I close the door to the shop behind me and press my back to the wood, exhaling and closing my eyes. It doesn’t register that Faust stares at me from the countertop until she straightens up and wiggles at me, curious. Stretching my arm down to meet her, I let her curl onto my shoulders and give me a friendly squeeze. 

“Don’t suppose you have any answers for me, Faust?” I ask, hanging up my bag and cloak by the door. “‘Cause I have a _lot_ of questions.”

I half expect Asra to pop out of nowhere and reply to me, as he usually does, but the shop stays silent. Faust nudges my jaw and points the tip of her tail at the bookshelf; the giant feather from Asra’s hat sits in front of it, fallen in his hurry to leave this morning, apparently. I go to pick it up, kneeling on the floor to let Faust drop down to investigate. She slithers her way towards the bottom shelf and sticks her tongue out at me.

“What did you find? Apart from dust, anyway… Huh?”

I pull from the shelf a large, purple tome— the only book without a jacket of dust on top. There’s a weird, intricate symbol on the front, embossed in silver, and I instantly recognize it to be the same one Asra hid from me when he brought all the magic books home. He wouldn’t let me read it… But he’s not home now. 

“Asra?”

I call out to double-check, and the quiet answers my question. Faust looks between the book and me and something in her expressionless face reads worry, but I’m not sure why. It’s just a book, after all. I brush my fingertips over the sigil on the front cover. 

As soon as I touch the symbol my heart _aches_. 

I drop the book onto my lap and clutch at my chest, my other hand steadying me with my palm against the hardwood floor, and I try to think or cry out or _something_ , but nothing happens. I’m out of breath— the sudden pain stole it from my lungs, and Faust frantically tries to nudge at me to help, but I barely register her presence. She hisses at me and curls her tail around my wrist, sleek and smooth.

It’s the last thing I feel before my vision whites out and I find that I’m lost in some sort of dream. A tall, smoking building, painting the sky with black clouds. The palace, but far closer than I’ve ever been to it, gold and red and beautiful. A long-nosed mask that smells floral when it’s attached to my face. Is it my face? I can’t tell. The tall red-headed man attaching the mask to me seems to think it is. He’s so familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it— or him, for that matter, as my hands are covered by long, black gloves. 

And then I see Asra. Asra, welcoming me home after a long day with a mug of tea and a hug. Asra, watching me from across the table with the firelight and mischief dancing in his eyes. Asra, holding my hand tight as we run through the marketplace in the pouring rain. Each time he smiles at me it makes the ache in my chest lighten, and he’s comforting me with words I can’t hear. No, not comfort… There’s a different word for it. Something more, something that makes me feel dizzy with it when it’s on the tip of my tongue.

Before I can think of the word I’m pulled away from the memory of him and into the reality of him. He helps me up from the floor and I’m suddenly pulled into a hug and he’s here, Asra’s here, 

Asra is _home_. 

“What happened?! Are you alright? What is—”

He looks down at his feet and sees the book. Asra doesn’t pick it up, so I do; my finger brushes over the sigil and my chest flares in pain, just for a second, but it’s more subdued than before. A slight shudder goes through him, but Asra squeezes my hand and the pain disappears entirely. 

“How did you find that?” He asks, murmured, and when he meets my eyes he looks terrified. It takes me a moment to find the words to reply.

“I— I have to ask you something, Asra.”

He swallows thickly, presses his lips together. “What is it?”

“When I touched the book, I had this, er, vision? I saw… you. And me, I think? We were running through the rain. But I don’t remember that happening.”

All color drains from Asra’s face.

“Why don’t I remember it?”

He takes a long, shuddery inhale, and when he exhales, he looks at me with such intensity that it makes my breath catch. Asra hesitates, as always, but he cradles my head in both of his hands. I lean into his touch and watch the flush of heat that rises to his face.

“Are you sure you want that answer?”

Before I get a chance to doubt myself, I nod. Asra sighs, but his smile is warm, almost excited.

“It was so hard, keeping secrets from you,” he says, hands sliding down my shoulders and arms to thread our fingers together. “I just wanted you to _know_. Come with me.”

I’m not sure what he means, but I follow after him regardless, letting him pull me upstairs to the kitchen. Asra gently pushes me down into a chair and pulls the other one to stand parallel from mine, plopping down in front of me and scooting closer. His hands try to occupy each other in his lap, fiddling with his fingers and drumming on his thighs. They’re shaking.

“Asra?”

I reach forward and take one of his hands in mine. He snaps out of his reverie to look at me, and I smile at him, trying my best to look reassuring.

“You can tell me, right?”

He takes a moment to think before he speaks. Asra eventually nods, and he holds my hand tight.

“I can. I’m just… trying to decide how to say it.”

He looks away from me, suddenly distant. I tilt my head to one side in question, trying to catch his eye; when he finally looks at me, I pull a silly face, thankfully making him laugh. His shoulders loosen and he sits up straighter, a new resolve in his posture. I scoot closer without really realizing it and our knees bump together.

“Well, you wanted to know. You don’t remember that because… of an accident. I helped you— I helped you recover from it.”

“What was the accident?” I ask, and with the look on Asra’s face I immediately regret it.

“You… it’s hard to explain. But you’re here now, and that’s what matters, right?” Asra takes a beat to study my face before he says “Is there anything else?”

It doesn’t feel like he really answered anything, but since I have him here, I may as well ask.

“Why _did_ you help me? Why— why are you teaching me magic, letting me stay in your home, why are you… so _nice_ to me?”

Asra doesn’t speak. I look down and wince my eyes shut, hiding from the sudden frustration of not knowing anything. Tears fall into my lap.

“Why me?”

“Because it’s you.”

He lets go of my hand and cups my cheek in his palm, lifting my head up and leaning forward until his forehead touches mine. He doesn’t look away this time.

“Because I love you.”

Oh.

That’s why.

My breath comes out shaky and uneven, the breath stolen from my lungs by his confession. Asra wipes a tear from my cheek with his thumb; something in his smile seems lighter, happier. 

Less hidden.

“I— I tried to tell you, last year, when we went to the forest for the first time—”

He did?

“But you… it doesn’t matter. What matters is you, right now. And this.”

My chest feels tight.

“I’ve come to care so, so deeply for you. It’s overwhelming, sometimes, when I realize it; you could be talking, or asleep, or whenever you laugh at something…” Asra laughs quietly, leaning back and shaking his head. “It would hit me in a wave. How much I love you.”

It starts to click into place now. Why he looks at me the way he does, why the gentle touches that don’t need the softness, why he lies awake in bed some mornings, waiting for me to wake up. He _loves_ me. And I… I…

I can’t breathe.

I unceremoniously pull away to take a breath, but my lungs don’t listen to my command anymore. My chest hurts again— the way it hurt when I touched the symbol on the book, how it made my heart feel like someone was trying to pull it from between my ribs. I grab at my chest and try to calm it down, but my pulse throbs in my ears like I’m trapped inside of a drum. Asra helps me to the bed by somehow dragging me there, a stream of apologies coming from his mouth that I don’t quite catch.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I—I shouldn’t have tried again, after what happened last time— I need you to forget. Please, please, it’ll help the pain. I need you to forget.”

How could I forget?

I try to tell him no but when I look at him the pain sears hotter, a hitch in my breath the only indication that I’m still alive. I try to look at my hands, one held tight in Asra’s, but they aren’t my hands. They look distant and wrong, somehow. Not mine.

“Please… You have to forget. For me.”

He leans down and presses his lips to my forehead, and a wash of numb takes over my body. The pain subsides slowly, in degrees, until I can’t feel anything anymore save for Asra’s hand in mine. He lets go and I fall unconscious.

— — — — —

I wake with the moon. Groggy and exhausted, I sit up and rub at my eyes, realizing the candles in the kitchen are lit and the kettle on the stove is steaming. He must’ve come home already.

“Asra?”

There’s a loud _thud_ and Asra comes bounding upstairs, out of breath. Weird. He breathes my name out in a sigh of relief.

“Good morning,” he sing-songs, a teasing lilt to his tone. “You were knocked out when I came home. Needed a nap?”

I don’t really remember falling asleep when I got home from the docks. Maybe I was so tired that I immediately came upstairs and passed out. 

“I suppose so.” 

Asra comes and sits on the edge of the bed. He studies my features for a second as I yawn, stretching my arms over my head, and he looks... concerned. Worried, for some reason.

“Are you feeling okay now?” he asks, leaning forward to press his palm to my forehead. “You’re not feverish, at least.”

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” I mumble, blinking blearily at him. “Are you alright?”

“What?”

“You seem worried… or upset.” I look around the room to find something off, but everything seems to be in place. Faust emerges from Asra’s shirt and bleps at me. “Did something happen?”

Asra doesn’t reply for a long moment, but when he does, he smirks at me, an eyebrow arched. “Aw, are you really that worried about me? How sweet.”

I try to protest the sincerity in my question but Asra scoots closer, a hand raised to touch me, but he pauses and drops it to the sheets, finding my hand and squeezing it tight. His eyes are red-rimmed.

“Everything’s fine. Really.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end of year two of three.
> 
> thank you for reading!! <3
> 
> (the postcard from the beginning has text taken from one of Asra's postcards in heart hunter, and he repeats one line word for word near the end ("It was so hard keeping secrets from you. I just wanted you to know.")-- definitely not mine, but Nix Hydra's!)


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